


A Ghost From the Past

by waxbirds



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: F/M, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 13:32:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10832292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waxbirds/pseuds/waxbirds
Summary: At your first not costume Halloween party, you come across a ghost from the past.





	1. See You Again

This was the first Halloween party that you had ever been to that you were told not to dress up. For your entire life, it was the biggest part of you celebrating. You dressed as cute things, you dressed as scary things, even stupid things. It was part of the whole holiday, but now instead of dressing up, you were dressed in a black tank top with a black lace top over it, dark jeans, black boots and a black scarf with skulls on it. In your own mind, you couldn’t quite shake the desire to dress up so you were adult Wednesday Addams.

As you pulled down the vanity mirror in your car to look yourself over one more time, you absentmindedly bought your hand straight to the loose brain you wore, smoothing it out again. You rubbed at the edges of your dark eye makeup, making sure it was all where it was supposed to be, and traced your lips again to remove any stray dark plum lipstick. It might not have been a costume party, but hell, you’d cheat into a costume.

You grabbed your bag, checking to make sure your copy of Donnie Darko was still there before climbing out of your car and heading for the front door. Instead of dressing up, your friend had decided on it being a Halloween movie party. Everyone was supposed to bring a Halloween themed movie, and he was very specific that it had to be Halloween related and not just a creepy movie, and you had decided on Donnie Darko.

“Hey!” your friend greeted, ushering you inside. “Good job not dressing up,” he added sarcastically. You frowned dramatically, sticking your tongue out at him as you walked passed him, hip checking him as you did.

“I did no such thing,” you said loftily, reaching into your bag and pulling out the DVD case. “And I brought my movie, thank you very much.”

“Donnie Darko,” he read, nodding approvingly. “Nice. I didn’t think of this one, but I probably should have.”

“Luckily for you,” you said, reaching over to open his entrance way closet where numerous jackets hung and where purses were currently stored. “I think of these things. Your life would be empty without me, really.” You dropped your purse into the mix and closed the door before leaving him to go into the living room, where you could hear people. Your eyes darted around, scanning faces until you noticed a group of people you were friends with. Before you could go over to them, however, your friend was putting his arm around your shoulders and steering you towards another group of people.

“I want you to meet some people,” he explained, squeezing your shoulder. “Just a couple of my other friends. I think everyone’s going to get along and then we can all hang out, you know?”

You smiled wearily, nodding. Ever since you met him in college, he was always trying to introduce people and just make a huge friend group. It was how you and your best friends at school met, because of him, and how you had met a couple guys you had dated, but you had to wonder how much longer he could pull it off. Now that you guys were out of school, it was getting harder for him to do this. He’d have to give up eventually.

“Guys, this is [Y/N],” he introduced as he led you to the group of people sitting in the chairs that were all trained on the TV. “And [Y/N], this is Blaine,” your friend pointed at the muscular guy who was sitting in the recliner your friend usually sat in (and you were surprised he let anyone else sit there) who was on his phone. He looked up from it at you and gave you a nod before going back to whatever it is he was doing.

“He’s on Tinder, probably. Usually is,” your friend whispered, before pointing to the couple on the couch. “This is Arryn and Miles,” he continued, both of whom smiled and waved as they were introduced. “And this,” your friend said, shifting you slightly to face you towards the one person sitting on the loveseat, “Is…” he started.

“Chris Demarais,” you finished, feeling your heart jump high into your throat before sinking to the pit of your stomach. You could feel the deer in the headlights look settle on your face, but you couldn’t seem to get it off. He furrowed his eyebrows, looking confusedly at you.

“Have we met before?” he asked, sitting up a little straighter. His eyes searched your face for a moment, and when you locked eyes, you looked away to your friend.

“We went to school together,” you informed in a quiet voice, the strength your voice usually held completely zapped by the shock of who you were seeing.

You felt like the wind had been knocked out of you. Out of all the people you thought you’d see after college, Chris Demarais was not one of them. The two of you had met at a birthday party for a mutual friend at the end of the fall semester and really hit it off. The two of you texted throughout winter break and had had a class together in the spring. You spent a ton of time together, studying and going to eat after class. It wasn’t long before you had developed a crush on him, and it wasn’t long after that that you two were hooking up.

But it had been more than that. At least, it seemed that way to you. You went out on what were undeniably real, proper dates. You bought each other presents and held hand and then…he was gone. Everything was fine until you started talking about the summer, and then he got slowly more distant. Then one day, all you got was radio silence. He wasn’t in class or answering your texts. He was just…gone.

And now he was sitting in front of you. What’s worse is that he didn’t even remember you.

“Oh. Yeah,” your friend said quietly, “I think I met him once. But…” your friend trailed off, looking between you and Chris. “[Y/N] brought Donnie Darko, which I think is a good movie for our night to start off with!” he told him, trying to steer the conversation in another direction.

“I’m going to go grab a drink first,” you mumbled, shrugging his arm off and heading for the kitchen without another word. You had spent so much time in this house, you could navigate your way to the kitchen in the dark, which was pretty like navigating it with about a dozen people in the house. The kitchen, however, was blissfully empty.

“Shit,” you sighed, grasping the counter and leaning against it. You tried to regain a normal feeling of your body and feelings, closing your eyes. You stood there for a while, just breathing deeply before you heard someone clearing their throat. You whipped around, frowning when you caught sight of Chris. You grimaced, watching his eyes search your face again, but when he broke into a smile, your grimace melted into confusion.

“I thought so,” he said quietly. “[Y/N].”

“What?” you asked quietly, looking away from him quickly and going to busy yourself with pick something out of the fridge to drink.

“Do you honestly think I don’t remember you, [Y/N]?” he asked, “You just…look a little different.”

“It’s called getting old,” you said shortly, “I just managed to look better than you doing it.” You heard Chris sigh and then chuckle sadly, but still you refused to look at him and instead began to shuffle around the bottles of soda on one of the shelves.

“I deserved that,” he admitted. “I owe you an explanation, I know that.”

With that you stood up and whipped around to face him, glaring at him, one hand on your hip, the other resting on the refrigerator door. Chris was keeping a respectful distance, leaning against the counter you had been when he came in, and by the look on his face when he saw yours, he was glad he was too far for you to hit him. You could feel the anger bubbling up inside you. While you thought it was long over (you had years to get over this) it was suddenly apparent you could still muster some rage towards him. Rightfully so.

“You owe me a lot more than an explanation, Chris Demarais,” you snarled, tightening your grip on the door. “You and I were fine. It was perfect. Everything was going so well and then you fucking disappeared, and you think all you owe me is an _explanation_?” Your voice went to a higher octave on the last word.

“I’m sorry?” he offered, making a face that he made when he was caught in a tough situation, uneasy with his teeth showing. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Look, at least let me explain. I’m not saying you can’t be angry, you have every right to be. Just let me explain. Please.”

“Fine,” you said, “Explain.”

“Look, I get what I did was shitty,” Chris started, “And I don’t disagree with that at all. You’re right, everything was going perfectly and then you brought up the summer, and when the fall came around. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you that I wasn’t coming back,” he explained, frowning and looking away from you and down at his feet. “And I should have just told you, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to tell you and so I didn’t.”

“Instead of doing the right thing, you did the easy thing,” you stated, a hard tone to your voice. You could remember how it felt packing up to go home, checking your phone to see if he had answered a single one of your texts, and driving away still not having heard from him. “You broke my heart and you think saying you did a shitty thing is going to fix that?”

“No!” Chris exclaimed, “I was stupid when I was younger, not that I’m not now, but I know what I did was fucked up. I think about it and I feel like shit. [Y/N], I love you, and I wanted to call and apologize a thousand times but I didn’t think you hearing from me again would help.”

“It’s all I wanted, Chris,” you told him, “I just wanted something. I thought I did something wrong. No one knew what had happened when I asked, and it was shitty that they thought I knew. Do you think I enjoyed getting asked about it six thousand times a day for an entire semester? Because I didn’t.”

“I…” he trailed off. “[Y/N], honestly, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think it through, and I ignored every part of my brain that told me to make things right with you. I don’t think I’ll be able to fix it, but if I can, _ever_ , tell me.”

You two stared at each other for a while before you nodded once to signal that you had heard him. You turned back to the fridge, pulled out a soda and shut the door. When you turned back around, Chris was gone. You headed back for the living room, seeing that all the seats were full. However, there had been blankets and pillows strewn out on the ground in front of the tv. You took an open spot there, nearish Chris. He gave you a sideways glance, but you squashed any curiosity he might have had when you stuffed a couple pillows in the area between you too.

The movie was shorter than you remembered it being. You focused mostly on the screen, but every once in a while, you would glance over at Chris. It was really only when you felt like he was looking at you, but every time you looked, he was watching the movie. Still, you couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on you.

Between the end of Donnie Darko and the start of the next movie, VHS, you stretched out on the floor while your friend complained about someone’s choice in movies. Another friend of yours laughed, claiming that they picked it especially because they knew he loved it. You laughed along with everyone else, wrapping an arm around one pillow and burying your head in the softness. As soon as the movie started, you looked up at the screen, rolling your eyes.

The first ten minutes or so went passed quietly, but after a while, you heard a voice whispering next to you that made you jump slightly.

“I don’t know what’s scarier,” the voice whispered, “the stuff on the tapes or the fact someone’s still using tapes in 2012.” You chuckled quietly, shrugging.

“Definitely the fact this asshole never bothered to digitize his shit,” you whispered back, looking over to see Chris was leaning on his elbows towards you. “Also, how the fuck is there a video chat on cassette?”

The two of you continued to make those kinds of comments during the entire movie, entirely just to make the other one laugh. At certain points, just because it was gross to look at, you’d hide your face in the pillow you were holding onto. It was almost normal between you, and the way the two of you fell back into this easy manner was definitely in the back of your mind. After holding that in for as long as you did, it felt good to finally let it out. Though you weren’t entirely sure how you even felt about Chris anymore, at least you could tell you were over blind rage.

After a couple more movies and a thinning crowd, it was finally time for you to call it a night. While you wanted to stay all night to watch more movies, you knew that if you wanted to not be dead at work, you had to go home. When the end of Halloween rolled around, you pushed yourself off of the floor and grabbed your movie off of the watched pile. You went around, saying your goodbyes to everyone, leaving your friend for last. He gave you a hug, whispered thanks for not blowing up about the fact Chris was here (and that’s when it hit you that he remembered Chris and you as much as you did because he never forgot a face) and headed to throw another movie in.

When you closed the closet door after pulling out your purse, Chris was standing there. You jumped back, taken by surprise by his sudden appearance. You looked at him for a moment before shaking your head. You should have figured.

“Look, can I just…” he trailed off, making a face. “Do you…” He stopped again, sighing. “Can I give you my phone number?” he asked finally. “For if you ever decide to forgive me for being an asshole? If nothing else, I’d really like us to be friends again. I missed talking with you and watching movies with you. I missed you a lot, [Y/N].”

You looked at Chris for a moment before settling on that it wasn’t a bad idea. Besides, he had asked to give you his number. You could always not call him if you decided to. You doubted he still had your number anyway. Being in control of the situation like that wasn’t the worst thing you had heard of. You nodded finally, pulling your phone out of your purse and holding it out to him.

“Sure, Chris,” you said, handing it over to him. “It just…might be a little while.”

“That’s fine,” he said, handing it back to you and you slid it back into your purse and fished out your keys. “It was really cool to see you again,” he added.

“You too, Chris,” you answered, heading for the door. “Good night! Enjoy the rest of the movies!”

______

As soon as you got home, you laid down in bed. You expected to be asleep within a couple of minutes considering how tired you felt, but sleep just seemed to keep eluding you. You just lay there, staring up at the ceiling in your bedroom, thinking about what had happened tonight. It wasn’t the movies that had gotten to you; it was Chris Demarais. It had been so out of left field, but there he was. You kept playing the conversation the two of you had in the kitchen over and over again in your head.

_‘You broke my heart and you think saying you did a shitty thing is going to fix that?’_

_‘No! I was stupid when I was younger, not that I’m not now, but I know what I did was fucked up. I think about it and I feel like shit. [Y/N], I love you, and I wanted to call and apologize a thousand times but I didn’t think you hearing from me again would help.’_

On the third replay of the conversation, it hit you like a ton of bricks.

You sat up abruptly, reaching for your phone on your nightstand, yanking the charger out and hitting the home button. You winced, closing your eyes most of the way as the bright light hit your eyes that had adjusted to the darkness and unlocked it. You scrolled through your contacts until you found Chris’ name and hit call. It rang four times before he picked up.

“ _Hello?_ ” His voice gave away that you had definitely just woke him up, but you were too set on getting an answer that you forwent apologizing and got right to the point.

“I love you,” you said shortly. There was a long pause before he spoke again.

“ _Wait, what?_ ”

“You said I love you, Chris. Not I lov **ed** you,” you told him, putting an emphasis on the last syllable of loved.  

“ _Yeah_ ,” he said, voice still laced with sleep, “ _And? You don’t honestly think I stopped loving you, right? I didn’t stop loving you because I was an idiot_ ,” he told you slowly.

You chewed on your bottom lip, mind racing as you took this in. He still loved you. It had been years, and Chris still loved you. Hell, when you two were together, you couldn’t think of a time when he had actually told you that he loved you. It was implied, sure, but he had never said the actual words.

After what must have been an entire minute, you spoke again.

“Do you want to go get something to eat?” you asked.

“ _[Y/N], it’s_ …” there was a rustling noise, “ _four-thirty. Nowhere’s even open right now_.”

“I know about a diner,” you told him dismissively, throwing the covers off of yourself and sliding out of bed. “Come on, Chris. I need to be to work at nine. I don’t care.” You paused. “Please?”

He sighed. “ _Yeah, fine. Where am I going?_ ” he asked and you broke into a grin.

“I’ll text you the address. I’ll meet you there at five,” you told him happily, not waiting for a reply before you hung up. Immediately, you opened a text, typed out the address and sent it to him. You tossed your phone onto your bed and headed to your dresser to find something decent to wear considering the fact you were probably going to straight to work from the diner. After pulling on a pair of pants and a nice shirt, you pulled your hair into a messy bun. You gave yourself the once over before nodding and going to grab your keys and leave.

You had made worse decisions.


	2. Forgiveness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After re-encountering Chris for the first time since college, you need to talk some things out.

You hadn’t completely forgiven Chris for what had happened. Admittedly, the talk at the diner, which you had only left from because you had to go to work at nine, had done a lot to clear things up. Things were uncomfortable at first, but it made you feel a lot better to finally understand what went down in college.

After that, the two of you started hanging out again. It was never alone (because you refused to let it be) but your friend and his group of other friends seemed to include Chris. Once he knew that you had talked things out with Chris (and yelled at him for springing Chris on you in the first place) he seemed way more likely to invite you to things that involved them. You had made some pretty great new friends, even if a few of them had come and gone since the Halloween party.

Today was going to be the first time you were properly alone with Chris since the diner.

Chris had been really cool about things. He never pushed, and let your friendship redevelop on your terms. You were really thankful for that because things were weird at first. Your former relationship was looming over the two of you and it made you uncomfortable when it was less than four people when you could talk to someone else without leaving him completely left out. The longer you hung out, though, the more you two of you seemed to find some sort of rhythm.

It was only a matter of time before the two of you made plans with one another.

You’d be lying if you said that you weren’t falling for Chris a little all over again. While you guys were constantly in a group, you always found yourself gravitating towards one another. Just like the Halloween party, during movie nights, you would find yourself huddled together and whispering stupid jokes to one another and stifling giggles as the others gave you annoyed looks.

That was why you saw that there was a movie being shown in the park, you texted Chris to see if he wanted to go. He texted back almost immediately to say yes, and asked who else was coming. After telling him it was just going to be the two of you, Chris took a while to answer. It was nerve-wracking, and you spent the entire time staring down at your phone on the kitchen table with your heart in your throat. Almost an hour after you texted him, he texted back telling you he’d bring the snacks if you brought a blanket.

It was weird; leading up to the movie night, you found yourself becoming more and more nervous about going with Chris. You weren’t entirely sure why (it wasn’t like it was a date or something) but when you were walking towards the giant inflatable movie screen where Chris was waiting with what he assured was “the perfect spot,” you felt butterflies in your stomach. When you spotted him standing in the middle of a crowd of people that were already sitting, smiling at you, you definitely felt your stomach flip-flop.

“I was starting to wonder if you were coming,” Chris told you once you were close enough, grabbing the bag he was holding with one hand and holding out his free arm for a one-armed hug that you walked right into, hugging him back. You mentally smacked yourself for noticing just how good he smelled and how even a one armed hug was still a great hug from Chris.

“I had to make sure I found a big enough blanket,” you explained, holding out a folded Star Wars blanket. “I found this one at the back of my closet. I don’t even remember buying it.” You started to unfold it to lay it on the ground when Chris laughed. You looked up at him, tilting your head as he beamed.

“That’s because you didn’t buy it,” he pointed out. “That’s mine. You stole it from me.”

You laid the blanket down, giving Chris a confused look. “I did not!”

“You did!” he laughed, “We were in my room and you wanted ice cream but you were complaining about being cold, so you took my blanket out to your car and left it in there when we went into Walmart and I never saw that blanket again.” He put down the bag of stuff, plopping down in front of it and looked up at you expectantly. You sat yourself next to him, giving him an incredulous look.

“How could you possibly remember that?” you asked him. “That was ages ago!”

“Uh,” he started, busying himself with pulling snacks out of the bag. “It…was my favorite blanket, you know,” he added slowly, not looking at you.

“You could have asked for it back, then,” you stated, grabbing the bag of Sun Chips he had brought, popping one into your mouth.

“I…uh. I was busy trying to figure out how to tell you I was leaving,” he admitted in a quiet voice. He continued to busy himself with unloading the bag. Aside from the Sun Chips, Chris had brought a bag of white cheddar popcorn, a six pack of the small sodas, and a bunch of different candy.

The two of you hadn’t talked about your relationship at all since that night at the diner. In fact, as far as you could tell, no one other than your mutual friend knew about your history with Chris. It still kind of hung in the air when the two of you were alone for a few moments you waited for the others to show up, but neither you nor Chris felt the need to talk about it again. And your friend knew better than to reopen that old wound. He had seen firsthand how Chris leaving had broken your heart,

“Right,” you said shortly, looking away from him to the snacks laid out before the two of you. Excitedly, you grabbed for the candy, knowing each of them instantly by the wrappers.

“My favorite!”

Chris sighed in relief, glad for the change of topic you were sure. He nodded, smiling as he watched you tear into one of the bags. “Yeah,” he said, “I figured you might still like those.”

“I do!” you assured, holding the bag out to him. “You want some?”

“Sure,” he chuckled, reaching into the bag and pulling out a handful.

The two of you chatted away, both seemingly incredibly relieved to be away from the college conversation. Between all the snacks, and the fact that the movie was starting, the awkwardness was pushed completely away. Any nervousness you felt was alleviated as the two of you fell into your comfortable rhythm. It was getting easier to find it, and it was most of the reason you wanted to hang out with Chris alone. While the two of you waited for the movie to start, you got comfortable, spreading the snacks out between the two of you.

“What movie is this anyway?” Chris asked, handing you a soda from over where they were on the other side of the blanket.

“I honestly have no idea,” you told him, laughing. “I just saw it was happening, figured it would be fun, and texted you to see if you wanted to come with me.”

“Fair enough,” he replied, nodding a couple times. “I guess we’ll find out in a minute!” he added as the screen went from white to blue and you could hear the speakers kick on. You beamed at him, feeling the pang in your stomach as he smiled back at you. The two of you locked eyes, looking at each other for a moment too long. The stomach flips were back again, and you could almost feel yourself starting to blush.

But then the movie started, and you both whipped around to look at the screen instead. You found yourself taking a few deep breaths after not realizing you were even holding your breath. You took a sip of your soda, busying yourself with it instead of acknowledging the person sitting next to you. You watched the screen for any indication of what movie you even invited him to and then…

“Cool Runnings?” Chris snorted. “It’s July, and they’re playing a movie about the winter Olympics?”

You both laughed under your breath, garnering looks from the people sitting next to you. You covered your mouth with the hand that wasn’t holding your soda to stifle the noise, shifting over to sit closer to Chris so you could whisper.

“Wishful thinking?” he offered in a whisper, leaning towards you to get closer to your ear.

“Maybe,” you whispered back, “Or maybe there’s just no good movies about the summer Olympics?”

“Probably.”

The two of you continued to whisper to one another, sometimes getting too loud and making the people next to you glare again. As weird as a movie choice as it was, you loved Cool Runnings. It was just one of those movies that wasn’t any sort of cinematic masterpiece, but it was a feel good movie and it never failed to brighten your day. There were quite a few times you’d show up to Chris’ dorm, declare you were watching a movie and throw the dvd box at him for him to put on.

The two of you had watched Cool Runnings so many times you had your own inside jokes about it, which the two of you were now telling as the movie went on. It was so nice, you had to admit. You were glad it was just the two of you too, because if you were annoying the people around you, you could only imagine how much you’d annoy your friends.

Towards the middle of the movie, you looked over to see Chris and you were taken aback to see that his face was significantly closer than you remembered it being. At the beginning of the movie, the both of you were sitting, leaning on your hands next to each other, but during the movie and all the whispering, you had shuffled closer together. Now his left hand was sitting next to your left hip and you were basically tucked between his arm and his side. While part of you was alarmed it had even happened, the rest of you seemed to be surprisingly okay with it. Instead of shifting away, you just rested your head against him and went back to the screen.

When the credits came on, neither of you were in any hurry to move. While people around you started to stand and pack up, you and Chris just sat there. You weren’t entirely sure you wanted to move, or if you wanted to deal with whatever exactly was even going on at the moment. You were perfectly content to watch the credits roll.

Eventually, though, they came to an end too and the screen went blank. That’s when Chris finally broke the silence between you.

“[Y/N],” he mumbled, his voice closer than you’d figure it’d be. You maneuvered your head on his shoulder so you could look at his face without moving away from him. You had to admit that it was nice and you didn’t want to move.

“Yeah?”

And then he was kissing you. It was gentle and uncertain, but it was every bit as familiar as sitting curled up against him, making bad jokes about movies. Any part of you that was nervous that things with Chris would be weird if you even considered on acting on those feelings that had been hanging around the last few weeks were immediately quieted. The kiss was wonderful and all you could do is lean on one arm and rest your other hand on his cheek and deepen the kiss.

“Hey! You two! Take it somewhere else!” a voice called, making you both jump and pull apart from one another. The two of you laughed, and you couldn’t help but notice the lightheaded feeling you had and how you were surprisingly okay with it. You felt _good_.

“Wow,” Chris said, raising his eyebrows at you.

“Yeah,” you answered. There was a pause before you added “…you know, it’s still pretty early. We can go over to my place and watch another movie. You can pick?”

Chris laughed, “Of course I can pick. I always get to pick when we never actually watch the movie!”

“That’s not true!” you gasped.

“It is!” he countered, laughing again. You rolled your eyes at him, starting to collect the snacks to shove back into the bag he brought.

“You are the _only_ person to complain about going over to someone’s place and making out with them, you know,” you told him.

“I wasn’t complaining,” he told you, “If that’s what we’re doing.”

“What else would we be doing?” you asked. He chuckled, leaning over to press another kiss to your lips.

“Fair enough,” he sighed, “I’ll pick the movie and we’ll watch the first ten minutes.”

“Perfect.” You smiled at him, melting a little when he smiled back at you. You stood up before Chris did, leaning down to kiss him again, hands resting on either side of his face. “Now hurry up. I’m impatient.”

You packed up the rest of your stuff, gave Chris your address to follow you there because he had come in his own car, and headed back to your own. You caught sight of yourself in your rearview window, beaming.

Whatever you’d been nervous about, you clearly had no reason to be. Forgiving Chris was the perfect thing to do and you were sure you wanted to. It had taken enough time to decide, but on the drive back to your place, you knew it was what you wanted to do.


End file.
